BILL NUMBER: S8999

SPONSOR: RIVERA
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act to amend the public health law, in relation to reporting communi-
cable diseases and deaths caused by such communicable diseases

 
PURPOSE:

This bill is designed to bring transparency to information gathered
during public health emergencies, including communicable disease
outbreaks like COVID-19, and require that facility specific information
on such cases and deaths are made public.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1: amends subdivision 1 of section 206 of the public health law
by adding two new paragraphs which requires the Commissioner to

(e-1) ensure that the Department updates its regular reporting of "Nurs-
              

ing Home and Adult Care Facility COVID Related Deaths Statewide" to
include those COVID-19 confirmed and presumed positive cases of those
residents who were transferred to a hospital and died in the hospital
retrospective to March first, two thousand twenty and (e-2) share aggre-
gate reports of information collected under the department's emergency
survey system known as the Health Emergency Response Data System (HERDS)
with entities completing and submitting the HERDS surveys at least week-
ly, in order to support situational awareness and emergency response
needs.

Sections 2 adds section 210-a to the public health law by adding two new
subdivisions 2-a and 2-b to ensure facilities are reporting specific
information related to communicable diseases and, during a declared
public health emergency involving a communicable disease, information on
positive cases of staff and residents of particular nursing homes and
adult care facilities are made public on at least a weekly basis.

Section 3 amends section 4140 of the public health law by adding a new
subsection 4 to requiring the Department of Health and county registrars
to record deaths that are confirmed or presumed to have occurred from a
disease which is designated in the sanitary code as a communicable
disease, and whether the individual resided in a nursing home or adult
care facility at or immediately prior to such death, even if the indi-
vidual did not die in the facility. During a declared public health
emergency, such information would have to be maintained and updated on
the Department's website no less frequently that once per week together
with information on cases of the communicable diseases associated with
the public health emergency at such facilities pursuant to section
2101-a of the public health law.

Section 4: effective date

 
JUSTIFICATION:

During the legislatures' August 2020, joint public hearings on COVID-19
in residential health care facilities it became clear that several key
pieces of information should be made more public and transparent. Most
notably, New York's accounting of nursing home and adult care facility
resident deaths do not include those residents who had been transferred
to a hospital and then passed away. While the official tally at the time
of the hearings was approximately 6,500 deaths of residents in facili-
ties, many speculated the number was significantly higher and that the
undercounting gives an inaccurate and rosier picture of what actually
happened in New York. The Commissioner was unable to answer what the
total number of deaths actually was. Additionally, New York seems to be
the only state that counted deaths in this manner and facilities them-
selves count deaths occurring in hospitals of their residents and
reported this data to the state.

The Department requires providers of all types to answer HERDS survey
data points throughout an emergency often changing the data being
requested from the providers. In every other instance, the data provided
by individual providers on HERDS forms have been provided back to
providers in an aggregated form to help them better understand and
manage the emergency. Much to the dismay of providers, after months of
daily data submissions and requests to the state to share the aggregate
data, the state has never shared any of the HERDS data. This bill would
ensure that the state provides the feedback to providers as they have in
the past.

Families and residents alike have suffered not knowing what is going on
in the facilities during the COVID pandemic. While some facilities did
provide residents and families with frequent detailed accounts of COVID
cases among residents and staff, many did and do not. This information
has been spotty depending on the facility or county the facility was in.
Having this information centralized for the entire state and easily
available on the department's website will provide families with infor-
mation they lack, particular during a period when they are unable to see
their loved ones, get into the facilities and get good information on
what is going on.

While the Governor announced in early September a "dashboard" with
information from all NY schools on COVID cases to be available to the
public, he did not make a similar requirement for nursing homes and
adult care facilities as this bill would do. The "COVID-19 Report Card"
allows the public to easily search by school district and individual
school to find the daily number of people in the facility verses remote
and the number and percentage of COVID positive cases as reported daily
by the schools. Similarly, SUNY has a "COVID-19 Tracker" which provides
detailed information on the number of tests, cases, quarantines,
isolations, hospitalizations, etc. at each campus through its website.

Nursing home and adult care facility residents, their families and staff
deserve no less. The frail, elderly and disabled living in congregate
settings have been identified as those most at risk since the beginning
of the pandemic, yet detailed data on COVID cases and deaths in partic-
ular facilities continues to be unavailable to the public. This bill is
designed to make sure that like information on schools and universities,
there is the transparency around cases in nursing homes and adult care
facilities.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

New Bill.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None to state.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.